Latest AI News

Anthropic Leases 158,000‑Square‑Foot London Space, Plans to Quadruple Workforce

Anthropic announced it will occupy a new 158,000‑square‑foot office in London, enough to house up to 800 employees—four times its current head count. The move aims to deepen the company’s research and commercial presence in Europe amid a talent race with other AI labs. The expansion comes as Anthropic faces a legal dispute with the U.S. Pentagon over its refusal to allow its models in mass‑surveillance or weapon systems, while the U.K. government seeks closer cooperation on AI safety and security.

Anthropic adds identity verification to Claude, sparking user backlash

Anthropic has begun rolling out identity verification for users of its Claude chatbot, requiring a government‑issued photo ID and a selfie in limited cases. The verification is handled by third‑party Persona, whose investors include Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. While the company says the step targets fraudulent or abusive activity, many subscribers balk at the added biometric check, citing privacy concerns and the service’s ties to government surveillance firms. Anthropic maintains the data will be encrypted, not stored, and will never train its models.

Anthropic launches Claude Opus 4.7, its most powerful generally available AI model

Anthropic has unveiled Claude Opus 4.7, the company’s most capable model offered to the public to date. Marketed as a step up from Opus 4.6, the new system promises stronger performance on software‑engineering tasks, improved image analysis, and more creative output for slides and documents. While Anthropic continues to restrict its flagship Mythos Preview to a handful of partners, Opus 4.7 ships with added cybersecurity safeguards and the same token‑based pricing as its predecessor. Early adopters include Intuit, Shopify, Databricks and other tech firms eager to test the model’s enhanced capabilities.

Antioch Raises $8.5 Million to Bridge Simulation Gap for Physical AI

New York‑based Antioch, a simulation platform for robot developers, announced an $8.5 million seed round that values the company at $60 million. Led by A* and Category Ventures, the round also includes MaC Venture Capital, Abstract, Box Group and Icehouse Ventures. Antioch’s technology aims to shrink the "sim‑to‑real" gap that hampers autonomous systems, letting engineers train robots in high‑fidelity virtual warehouses instead of costly physical testbeds. The funding will accelerate product development and expand the startup’s customer base, which already includes several large multinationals.

Google Gemini Now Generates Custom Images from Your Google Photos

Google has expanded Gemini’s Personal Intelligence feature to let the AI draw on users’ Google Photos libraries when creating images. Subscribers to Gemini AI Plus, Pro or Ultra in the United States can prompt the system with requests like “Design my dream house” and receive visuals that reflect their personal tastes and lifestyle. The capability, powered by the Nano Banana 2 model, identifies people and objects in a user’s photo collection to tailor the output, while Google says it will not train its core models directly on private images. The rollout begins in the next few days on Chrome desktop and will broaden to more users soon.

Google equips Gemini Personal Intelligence with Nano Banana image generation

Google announced Thursday that its Gemini Personal Intelligence feature will soon generate images using a new Nano Banana‑powered engine. The upgrade lets the AI create pictures that reflect a user’s preferences and photo‑library labels without explicit prompts. Subscribers to Google’s Plus, Pro and Ultra plans in the United States will receive the capability within days, and the company says it will roll out to Chrome desktop and other markets soon. The move expands Gemini’s contextual understanding, but Google warns the system can still misinterpret data and invites user feedback.